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Thursday, May 15, 2014

Patron Book Review: Hell by Robert Olen Butler

Posted by EPL Patron and guest blogger, Irv S.

Robert Olen Butler's Hell is an amazing place peopled
with fascinating characters going nowhere and suffering interminably. Satan
thwarts their attempts at suicide, they must continue to "live" in
Hell for eternity. The redeeming feature for them is that nearly everyone is
there and for the reader is that the satire is nonstop.

The head of security is J. Edgar Hoover who claims that
he is there because he must keep an eye
on the Communists. The chauffeur is Richard Nixon who enjoys crashing his
limousine into crowds. The pedestrians he kills quickly reassemble themselves
in order to resume their misery. Bobby
Fischer the former chess grand master always plays white and always loses to
his opponent, a computer. Jerry Seinfeld does his act to a deadly silent
audience. Anne Boleyn cohabits with the protagonist, Hatcher McCord, a former
TV news anchorman who now does the evening news on Broadcast Central in the
Great Metropolis. Their sex life is completely frustrating, only in part
because of her propensity to remove her head and in part because of her desire
to resume her relationship with Henry, who is depicted in his late years, fat
and sick. Most popes and U.S. presidents are there. Many of the characters seem obsessed with the question, "Why am
I here?"

The book is truly clever, the characters quite
interesting, the plot somewhat thin. Butler, a graduate of Granite City High School, is a
brilliant writer. At least one critic
justifiably dubs him the best living American author.